i can tell you, my love (that i won't let you go)
by Beautiful Thief
Summary: Kagami's scary face has not been at all detrimental to his popularity after Seirin's Winter Cup victory.


FFN removes some of the breaks and spacing which I liked about how I did this... to read this fic in it's intended form, please see my tumblr or AO3.

…this was supposed to be written for Kagami's birthday but. uh. Clearly it wasn't.

Instead, it's for KagaKuro day. :3

Also written for the 30 Day Cheesy Tropes Challenge - Day 3 - Anonymous Love Letters.

Dedicated to wingroad because I needed help with letter content. ;)

* * *

The first one hadn't actually been all that strange at first.

The thing was, the Winter Cup win rocketed pretty much all the members of Seirin's basketball club to a level of frankly terrifying popularity. For Taiga, whose scary face had deterred most interaction with others, this was mostly just a pain in the ass, especially because Kuroko was still so adept at escaping their new friends.

The newfound popularity had also come with love letters.

Taiga had, much to a lot of the club's amusement, borne the brunt of this particular aspect of popularity, in spite of his so called 'scary face' that had deterred such attention beforehand.

He was, therefore, used to receiving letters on his desk or shoe locker, or occasionally in person. Kuroko had caught him that first day he'd gotten a letter after the Winter Cup and told him, when Taiga had said he wasn't sure what to do with it, that he should at least read it, because the giver had taken the brave step to make their feelings known.

It wasn't like Taiga hadn't planned to read them anyway. It wasn't like he didn't _know_ that confessing to someone, whether in a letter or in person, was actually really, _really_ hard, because he'd been trying to work up the nerve to unbalance this thing that was going on with Kuroko for a while now.

It was easier to confess to someone who wasn't so important, was what Taiga had learned from the letters. There was so much about his friendship and partnership with Kuroko that _mattered. _Barely any of the confessions he received were from people who'd spent time with him. There'd been a few from classmates, but many less than the number received from girls in other classes, who knew him only from a distance.

The first letter hadn't been strange because it had sat with another one on his desk when he came back from lunch with Kuroko. He didn't actually read it until after practice that afternoon, when he and Kuroko were getting a quick snack at Maji Burger before they split for their respective homes.

It was different from all the other love letters he'd received because there was no name left on it from this new admirer.

He kind of wanted to ask Kuroko about it, because it was odd, and he didn't understand why. It wasn't as if he'd ever gone up to any of the girls who'd left letters, unless they'd requested to meet for a confession. It was honestly just too awkward, and if they hadn't wanted to meet to confess in person, then he didn't see the point in embarrassing the both of them.

But it seemed almost... _wrong_ to talk to Kuroko about it, even though there wasn't anything romantic between them. Yet. Well, _hopefully_ yet.

There was something very depressing about being able to trash talk anyone at any moment but not being able to say a simple thing like _I like you_.

* * *

_From Letter 1_

_...one of the things that drew me to your passion and confidence; I remember your fearlessness on the roof of the school at the beginning of the year, and you have only continued to inspire me since..._

* * *

The second one... was baffling.

It was kind of unexpected, because the letter writer continued to leave it unsigned. Taiga could have understood it if this one was signed, or... something... but the second one was also anonymous.

This one was again left on his desk, though it was alone this time. Taiga turned the envelope over in his hands slowly through class instead of paying attention.

It was a plain white envelope, with nothing on it except for his name in neat handwriting.

At the end of class, he went to tear it open, even though he really should be heading down to practice.

Kuroko elbowed him in the side.

"Oi," Taiga growled.

"Your admirer can wait until after practice is done, Kagami-kun," Kuroko said. He seemed kind of annoyed, but Taiga wasn't sure why.

But it didn't matter – he was right, after all – so he shrugged and slid it into his notebook.

* * *

_From Letter 2_

_...Today I saw you help a girl carry some papers to her classroom. I've noticed your kindness, but people always seemed to shy away from your offers to help before. It made me really happy to see other people notice how truly wonderful you are, and though I am pained by the idea of someone else becoming important in your life, I truly wish for your happiness..._

* * *

They say that you can get used to anything, so Taiga wasn't actually super surprised by the third letter.

He'd sort of meant to ask Kuroko what it meant that he now had multiple anonymous letters after he'd received the second one, but he'd forgotten to; by the third letter he just decided to chalk up to a particularly strong crush combined with some pretty powerful shyness from the letter writer.

...of course it wasn't an excuse to avoid talking about feelings with Kuroko. Where on earth would someone get that idea?

This one was the same as the last two; the handwriting on the envelope looked familiar, but Taiga chalked it up to this being the third letter from the one person.

The third letter got put inside the front of his textbook at the end of class, not willing to risk Kuroko's wrath on a repeat offence of checking a letter when he should be on his way to practice.

(He was embarrassed to say that he forgot all about it.)

Taiga started feeling kinda bad for his admirer by the time the fourth letter arrived.

Honestly, this admirer seemed to actually, genuinely like him on a level deeper than his other admirers. Their persistence was kind of admirable, except that it was starting to bug him that he didn't know who this person was, because they never put a name to their letters. He kind of wanted to make this person feel better because he felt like they thought their feelings were hopeless but wanted to express them somehow anyway. Taiga felt like he kind of understood that feeling.

The fourth letter arrived in much the same manner as all the previous ones; in a plain envelope with his name on it, delivered at some point to his desk when he was gone from it. He took the chance to open it during class, even though if the teacher noticed it she'd probably confiscate it; but Kuroko has dozed off, so he won't get a better chance, and he's kind of curious to see if the letter-writer has finally signed their name.

He skips over the content for the first read through to check; they haven't. Satisfied enough having an answer to that question, he put it aside for later.

* * *

_From Letter 4_

_You're a very inspiring person. It's plain to anyone who looks how talented you are, but even though you must also be aware of it after the events of this winter, you continue to work hard and it makes me want to do better to reach for my dreams too._

* * *

Taiga would have loved to claim that he figured it out through logic and deduction, but that would have been an enormous lie.

He figured it out because he got _sick_.

Taiga never got sick. _Ever_. He could count on one hand the number of times that he'd been sick enough to justify staying home from school in America, and hadn't been sick once after coming back to Japan.

Until now.

He knew he should just be thankful that the one time he got sick, it happened in the off-season, but he was mostly just annoyed he'd gotten sent home. He wasn't _that_ sick, but Kuroko had taken one look at him and told the teacher he was ill, and apparently his whole class was made of people with the worst immune systems to ever exist, so...

Here he was.

It wasn't too bad. He'd say he'd have extra time to do the homework he hadn't done, but he knew he wouldn't do it anyway. He just laid listlessly on the couch and stared through the TV, dwelling on how Kuroko had told him that he was going to tell Coach so he shouldn't even bother trying to turn up for practice either.

Still, he was grateful that he felt better the next day, and Kuroko had made the effort to stay awake and take notes for him on the classes he'd missed, so all in all, Taiga supposed it hadn't been too bad, even if spending the day alone in the apartment had been kind of lonely and depressing.

He figured it out because Kuroko would need his notes back so he could maintain his average grades, and when he'd gone to get his books out, the unopened third letter fell out from where he'd stowed it in his textbook that time.

He'd picked it up and taken it with him to the table where he'd left Kuroko's notebook. He opened and read it, mainly for curiosity's sake, and put it aside in favour of copying Kuroko's notes.

So it wasn't until he decided to take a break, got a drink, and came back to the table that he looked at Kuroko's notebook and the unsigned letter, and thought that the handwriting looked kind of similar.

And paused. Took a moment to run that thought through his mind again.

_The handwriting looks kind of similar_.

He almost couldn't believe it.

Taiga had to go back to his room and dig the other three anonymously left letters from the pile of other letters he hadn't had the heart to throw away and check; sure enough, the handwriting on all four were incredibly similar to Kuroko's handwriting in his notebook.

He didn't really want to jump to conclusions. Well, he _did_ want to jump to this conclusion. Wanted to jump to it a lot, actually. He just wasn't really sure how. Part of him was convinced Kuroko was the anonymous letter writer, and it made him glad he'd never broached the subject with him, but another part of him was still a little sceptical, and wanted to know how he could find out for _sure_. Because acting on this if he was wrong would suck and make things way more awkward than necessary. They would recover, of course; Taiga had never thought that a rejected confession would do something irreparable their friendship and partnership. After everything they'd gone through, it seemed laughable to think something like that. His reluctance to confess had always been more about self-preservation, combined with his inability to ever get words to work for him.

But he would have to figure out what to do quickly. After all, he didn't think he'd be able to hide his discovery from Kuroko. He really wasn't a very good actor, and Kuroko was incredibly perceptive.

Finally, he decided, _to hell with it_.

* * *

"Here's your notes. Thanks for lending them to me."

Tetsuya looked up as Kagami dropped his notebook on his desk. He was a little pink in the face, though he wasn't sure why. Maybe someone had confessed to him again. He always got flustered by a confession done in person.

"You're welcome."

He went to put it away, and then noticed that there was something sticking out the top. He slid it out – it was a note in Kagami's very untidy handwriting.

_stupid did you think i wouldn't notice the handwriting_

_i like you too you know_

He felt himself flush, and had to take a moment to gather himself back to his usual calm before he looked up.

Kagami, who'd been nervously peeking over his shoulder to check his reaction, quickly looked towards the front of the classroom.

_How cute_, Tetsuya thought, and smiled slightly. _His ears are pink_.


End file.
